[fuh-net-iks, foh-] 
) | 1. | the science or study of speech sounds and their production, transmission, and reception, and their analysis, classification, and transcription. Compare acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics, auditory phonetics, physiological phonetics. |
| 2. | the phonetic system or the body of phonetic facts of a particular language. |
| 3. | the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language. |
[fuh-net-ik, foh-] | 1. | Also, pho⋅net⋅i⋅cal. of or pertaining to speech sounds, their production, or their transcription in written symbols. |
| 2. | corresponding to pronunciation: phonetic transcription. |
| 3. | agreeing with pronunciation: phonetic spelling. |
| 4. | concerning or involving the discrimination of nondistinctive elements of a language. In English, certain phonological features, as length and aspiration, are phonetic but not phonemic. |
| 5. | (in Chinese writing) a written element that represents a sound and is used in combination with a radical to form a character. |
| pho·net·ics (fə-nět'ĭks) n. (used with a sing. verb)
|
phonetic pho·net·ic (fə-nět'ĭk)
adj.
Of or relating to phonetics.
Representing the sounds of speech with a set of distinct symbols, each designating a single sound.
phonetics pho·net·ics (fə-nět'ĭks)
n.
The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their production, combination, description, and representation by written symbols.